ONLINELive Program: “The Adventures of Saul Bellow”

Join us for a live conversation with Asaf Galay, director of “The Adventures of Saul Bellow,” moderated by professor Saul Zaritt.

Saul Bellow’s chronicles of post-war American Jewish life have influenced generations of readers and writers alike. In the first documentary about Bellow’s work, life and legacy, Asaf Galay presents previously restricted footage and interviews with Bellows’ family and writers like Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth and Martin Amis. This examination of Bellow’s influence on American literature and his role as a public figure dealing with issues of race, gender and the immigrant experience makes this a must-see for any Bellow reader.

Galay uses the documentary medium to rethink Jewish and Israeli relationships with modern culture. His recent films include “Army of Lovers in the Holy Land,” which follows a Swedish pop singer from his sexually provocative art to his decision to move to Israel; “The Hebrew Superhero,” which examined the development of comic books in Israel; and “The Muses of Bashevis Singer,” his documentary about the female translators who transformed the career of Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. Galay also has a film currently in production: “Cartooning America,” about the Jewish cartoonists who brought us Betty Boop.

Saul Noam Zaritt is an associate professor of Yiddish literature in the departments of Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is the author of “Jewish American Writing and World Literature” (2020) and is a founding editor of “In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies.”